The Poet's Poet

Essays on the Character and Mission of the Poet as Interpreted in English Verse of the Last One Hundred and Fifty Years

by Elizabeth Atkins

Excerpt

Minor poets have been considered, perhaps to an unwarranted degree. In the Victorian period, for instance, there may seem something grotesque in placing Tupper's judgments on verse beside Brown ing's. Yet, since it is true that so slight a poet as William Li'sles Bowles inﬂuenced Coleridge, and that T. E. Chivers probably inﬂuenced Poe, it seems that in a study of this sort minor writers have a place. In addition, where the views of one minor verse-writer might be negligible, the views of a large group are frequently highly significant, not only as testifying to the vogue of ephemeral ideas, but as demonstrating that great and small in the poetic world have the same general attitude toward their gift. It is perhaps true that minor poets have been more loquacious on the subject of their nature than have greater ones, but some attempt is here made to hold them within bounds, so that they may not drown out the more meaningful utterances of the master singers.